#yes gays rescue the queer princess

[doriandrifting]

Why I think Vickie could go missing next season: Rescuing The Princess

Almost all of the characters added this season were from The Breakfast Club! We also saw nods to the makeover scene with Nancy and Robin. In the Breakfast Club, Molly Ringwald’s character is dubbed “The Princess” and Vickie’s aesthetic is based on her and Molly Ringwald’s role in Pretty in Pink, which we also see referenced throughout the show and the characters’ official playlist.

In Season Two we see the boys playing Dragon's Lair, attempting to slay a Dragon to rescue Princess Daphne which is again referenced to with Will's painting for Mike in Season Four:

Someone else pointed out that the DnD guide that the painting was based on also shows a princess in the grips of an angry dragon.

And Season One's campaign talks about a Lost Knight and Proud Princess:

These lines in Season Four also really stuck out to me as possible foreshadowing:

This makes me think that Vecna might take Vickie as bait, which would lure Robin, and in turn the rest of our characters, where Vecna could close the gates behind them and trap them in the Upside Down.

I also think it's interesting when we consider what we've been told about her character:

(This isn't to say I wouldn't be disappointed that she possibly wouldn't get as much romantic development, because I most definitely would, but I think it makes sense in terms of mirroring Season One's plot and managing the overwhelming lack of time to finish up so many plotlines for long-standing characters. This could also be a way to integrate her into the supernatural plot as well as give Robin development on a similar level to Mike in Season One.)

[agatharioscoven]

“As a queer woman, playing a queer character.” - Erin Kellyman, Willow Behind The Magic.

Do you know how refeshing it is to have actors that understand what it’s like to not see yourself in something?

I love Erin and Ruby, because they get it they know how much these characters mean to us.

To take the classic ‘Knight get’s the Princess’ trope, and to make it gay.

As Erin said, if she had these character’s when she was younger, it would have made it easier for her to understand the feelings she was having.

All of us that have struggled to figure out what we were feeling could have done with character’s like Kit and Jade, who don’t question that their feelings are for another girl, that are never shown it’s different to Boorman and Scorpia, or Sorsha and Madmartigan.

To have had that when I was 13 would have made a lot of things clearer a lot sooner, and I am so so so glad that young kid’s can look at these character’s and see themselves.

Kit, who isn’t a typical princess, she’s not girly. She has short hair, and prefers to be swordfighting than getting dressed up for a royal function.

Jade, who by all account’s isn’t a typical knight, she’s not a guy. But that doesn’t stop her, she’s never told that she can’t train, just that an elite group might not accept her to train with them, but they do.

For myself, I see myself in both Kit and Jade. I was never girly, I would rather be rough housing with the boys, climbing trees, playing football, always prefered short hair.

On the rare occasion I would play a game that involved princess’s and knights, I was always a knight rescuing the princess.

So to finally see me on screen, yes as two different people, but that’s me! That’s amazing. I’m 28 years old so to finally see that.

Kit and Jade will always have my heart. They will always be special to me.

Disney can never take them away from us. I’m sure I’ve said this before, but even if we don’t get anymore of them, if we don’t get season 2, Disney can’t ever take away the first lesbian princess, and her lady knight.

Kit and Jade will always belong to us. They will always be there for us to show to young kids. To show that diversity and representation.

[tc-doherty]

I posted 1,548 times in 2022

That's 1,548 more posts than 2021!

715 posts created (46%)

833 posts reblogged (54%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@muddshadow

@asher-orion-writes

@magefaery

@tc-doherty

@italiangothicwriteblr

I tagged 1,438 of my posts in 2022

Only 7% of my posts had no tags

#writeblr - 376 posts

#writing - 294 posts

#my characters - 170 posts

#thanks!! - 170 posts

#tc's writing - 112 posts

#ask games - 110 posts

#blorbo blursday - 109 posts

#dragon's daughter - 87 posts

#thanks! - 77 posts

#my stories - 74 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#a drawing of keril and tirzha meeting would just be that elmo hellfire gif with the 2 of them and everybody else screaming in the background

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Synopsis:

In a ruined castle deep in the wilderness, there lived a beautiful princess guarded by a ferocious dragon. Except for the fact that the maiden in the tower was no princess at all, but the dragon’s daughter. Rescued against her will, she is carried off to human lands and given the name Lady Patrice Drake.

Caught between culture shock and grief, she must find a way to navigate her strange new surroundings lest she be drowned under human machinations and politics.

Who among these people are enemies? Who among them are allies? And most importantly, who is she without her mother's guidance and protection?

Age range: new adult

Warnings for: occasional, non-graphic violence

*

Dragon's Daughter is the first book of a fantasy lesbian love story duology that I started writing quite some time ago. I'm very excited that this book will finally be coming out this year! Look forward to more information being revealed in a few months~

24 notes - Posted January 2, 2022

#4

Hey! Happy Storyteller Saturday (Getting this in early this time haha)

You have a book coming out this year!

Treat this as a practice advertisement to my followers!

What's it called? Tell us the tropes! Tell us the genres! Tell us an elevator pitch! Do you have a cover / art to grab the attention of visual readers? :D

@jacquesfindswritingandadvice / bloodlessheirbyjacques ✨

@jacquesfindswritingandadvice

Oh yay! I don't usually get asks for Storyteller Saturday (probably because I'm not online on the weekends) but yes, I do have a book coming out this year! And I would love to talk about it!

Dragon's Daughter is book one of a two-part lesbian knight/dragon love story and my elevator pitch is:

A young dragon is mistaken for a princess trapped in a tower and forcibly "rescued" by a would-be knight in shining armor. Carried off to human society, and with no ability to leave, she has no choice but to accept her newly bestowed noble title and do her best to navigate all of the drama that comes along with it.

(Just to make it clear, her love interest is not the same knight as the one who "rescues" her)

Some tropes: knights and ladies, dragons, general 1200s-ish fantasy setting, finding oneself, found family, political intrigue, lots of queer characters, a medium amount of world-building

The story will be serializing as a web novel starting July 15th before being published as a physical volume. It will be available on the publisher's Patreon along with a second very good, very gay novel by another author.

The cover reveal (and first full chapter, for free!!) will happen in about two weeks, so you're a bit early. But I can say that the story will have 14 very sweet illustrations which are being done the old-fashioned way, as actual block carving prints!

Just for you I will share a thumbnail that we decided not to go with (in favor of another option) so that you can get an idea of what the full art looks like. We're going for the visual style of fantasy novels printed in the 40s and 50s.

And I do have an image of the main character, Lady Patrice Drake, that I drew a few months ago.

See the full post

37 notes - Posted June 4, 2022

#3

Current Project List

Story type: Fantasy, F/F romance

Age range: 14+

Warnings for: Genre typical, non-graphic violence

Synopsis:

In a ruined castle deep in the wilderness, there lived a beautiful princess guarded by a ferocious dragon. Except for the fact that the maiden in the tower was no princess at all, but the dragon’s daughter. Rescued against her will, she is carried off to human lands and given the name Lady Patrice Drake.

Caught between culture shock and grief, she must find a way to navigate her strange new surroundings lest she be drowned under human machinations and politics.

Who among these people are enemies? Who among them are allies? And most importantly, who is she without her mother’s guidance and protection?

See the full post

39 notes - Posted April 25, 2022

#2

I've only been keeping track of my word count since 2009, but if I keep up the pace that I'm at now I should hit 3 million words next year… That's pretty cool~

193 notes - Posted August 8, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Multiple times in the past 2 weeks I've had people say things along the lines of "but you probably have really specific ideas about what your characters look like" and "but you probably have really specific ideas about what your character sounds like" and the answer is no! I don't!! I have no clue!

I cannot visualize things for shit!

I cannot picture things in my head, be that actual visuals or audio or taste or anything else. I have almost complete aphantasia. Whatever I write down description-wise is usually pretty vague.

Whatever you think my characters look like or sound like based on whatever limited description I give, that's totally fine with me.

I just want to put it out there that like. I am a fantasy author who has a very, very poor ‘visual’ imagination, and that's fine. Almost always when I'm talking to people they think that I must be able to see like. Movies in my head or whatever and the truth is it's a blank fucking slate, that's all. I don't see anything. I don't hear anything. I make up everything with my best guess work.

That's also why I tend to use a lot of descriptions and metaphors that have to do with animals, because I'm very familiar with animal behavior, but I'm not very good at visualizing things so…comparing things to animals it is!

It is something that has a big impact on my life. I am really bad at directions because I can't visualize maps or routes in my head. I can't remember what people's voices sound like, I can't remember what their faces look like either, not until I've known them for really long time and have seen them frequently, I can't remember what things I've eaten taste like…so on and so on.

Just want to say that you can like. Really not have a single god damn clue, and still write just fine.

Don't feel like you have to think about your writing in a certain way, or that you have to provide a certain kind of stuff for other people. You do you, and they'll do them, and that's okay.

620 notes - Posted August 18, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[wizardhecker]

ollie’s book rec list

hey y’all i got libby this last year and its expanded my reading a bunch. I talked about what books I liked on twitter earlier but I wanted to move that over here. These books aren’t in order of preference, just when I read them. I’ll probably be updating this list throughout the year as well. 

Stuff I loved:

Gideon the Ninth- Tamsyn Muir: Probably my favorite book from this year, I’m eagerly awaiting for the sequel. WAs everything I wanted in a book, witty and clever. Lesbian necromancer and buff swordgirl end up taking part in a contest that entangles them in murder and mysteries. Its sci-fi but not hard sci-fi and sticks mostly to one planet. I’m witholding judgement on the ending until I read the second book because I have some conflicting feelings about it. Tags: F/F romance, bones, so many bones, Sci-fi, mystery

Ancillary Justice - Ann Leckie: Told from the perspective of a ship AI that was once many different ancillaries. The story jumps back and forth between the present where she inhabits one body and the past to how that came to occur. It was super unique and engaging. I’ve seen this on a few lists for LGBT content which maybe there is in later books but that tag comes from the the ship AI being confused by gender since her language just uses “she/her” pronouns for everything. Therefor, yes technically any romances that occur are queer because every single character is referred to via she/her. I love language stuff like that though. Theres so many details that I was deeply fascinated by. Tags: sci fi, space politics, clones, unique perspective. 

The Raven Tower - Ann Leckie: Similar to her other book above, she plays with storytelling and narrator perspective. This is from the perspective a god who is a giant rock and switches between past and present. It was a bit slow at first, as it is a rock telling the story, but its well worth it and the ending was so fulfilling. I REALLY enjoyed the world building, everything felt neatly crafted as piece by piece the machine comes together and turns slowly. The protagonist human is also explicitely trans. Tags: politics, fantasy, god wars, trans protagonist.

Swordspoint - Ellen Kushner: An older book, but focuses around the politics of a city where swordsmen fromt he lower city are hired to fight for the aristocrats in the higher city. Follows the best swordsman and his [insufferable] scholar boyfriend, but switches perspectives a lot. Its fun, I might reread it. Tags: heavy politics, aristocrat bullshit, M/M romance, swordfighting!

Kings of the Wild - Nicholas Eames: This book read Very much like someone’s first classic D&D campaign, for better or for worse. I Loved it because the heart, passion, and sincerety put into it was so palpable and it feels like a campaign where everyone comes in with goofy joke characters and then midway through they get Really into it and suddenly everyone’s crying because that joke backstory they made has implications. Its about a bunch of retired legendary old men adventurers who get called back for one more job - to rescue the leader’s daughter. Tags: Sad old men, good fathers, fantasy, gay wizard, tabletop inspired.

Bloody Rose - Nicholas Eames: The sequel to the previous book (though it could be read alone). It really goes into more depth and analyzes some of the previous worldbuilding more, pulling apart some of the problems in the world that were swept away previously. I liked it slightly less but its still very good. It follows a bard joining up with an adventuring band to fight a...dragon? Maybe. Tags: F/F romance, are monsters people, necromancy, dragons, fantasy.

The Golem and the Jinni - Helene Wecker: A newly made golem woman and a Djinn who was trapped for thousands of years both in up in New York City in 1900, and their paths eventually intertwine. Really amazing perspective of Jewish and Arab immigrant communities and cultures in NYC. Switches point of view through many characters in the communities who come in and out of their lives. Tags: Supernatural beings, urban fantasy, historical.

The Monster of Elendhaven - Jennifer Giesbrecht: Very short book I read in one sitting about terrible evil men doing terrible evil things. One of them is unkillable, the other one is sorcerer and theyre tied together through a dark fate to destroy the world. I was deeply into the mythology and the way everything wove together. You know I’m a sucker for weird god stuff and I was provided for. Uhh trigger warning for a lot of stuff here, graphic violence, sexual assault, etc. Tags: Evil stuff, magic, dark mythology and folklore, capitalism, revenge plots.

The Black God’s Drums - P. Djeli Clark: Another short one read in one sitting, set in an alternate post-civil war setting New Orleans where a girl has a Goddess of storms living inside her. Tags: alternate history, bi protagonist, gods and goddesses. 

The Claidi Journals - Tanith Lee: So this was a reread of a kind of obscure series I read when I was a kid and I immensely enjoyed. Caveat that it is a young-adult series but it was such a fascinating and vibrant blend of fantasy magic and sci-fi, there’s little blend between the magic and technology of the realm. It’s about terrible families doing terrible things and the women who got accidentally caught up in it. It also has one of the most interesting women characters I’ve ever read who doesn’t even appear much in the books but whose legacy impacts every character. Tags: Science fantasy, aristocrat bullshit, bad moms, hetero but chill. 

Mixed Feelings:

Uprooted - Naomi Novik: Reclusive wizard who holds an evil forest at bay takes on an apprentice girl who gets entangled in further politics of the nation. I got Really into the worldbuilding, plot, and writing of this book and it hooked me pulling me along. However I have a major frustration with it that really prevents me from putting it in the “loved” category. If I could edit out about 20 lines I’d have found it perfect. I know other folks who disagree with me though so I’ll still recomend it. Tags: wizards, nature magic, politics, grumpy tower wizard, unfortunately heterosexual.

Of Fire and Stars - Audrey Coulthurst: Lesbian princesses and arranged marriages uh oh. Ones a ranger jock the others a sorcerer. Its fine and cute, I wasn’t really happy with the antagonist reveal at the end though. Tags: Aristocrat bullshit, politics, F/F romance, arranged marriage angst, forbidden magic.

Wayward Son - Rainbow Rowell: I really enjoyed the first book of this series and found it a delightfully self-indulgent transparent Harry Potter derivation. That sort of falls apart in the second book where having to build off something that worked as a one-off just doesn’t extend to a more filled out story and left me feeling unsatisfied. But, once again, the world building is delightful and I’m charmed by the magic system and a British person’s opinion of America. Tags: M/M romance, magic, America!, roadtrip, vampires

The Last Sun - K.D. Edwards: Modern fantasy tarot inspired world building. The main character is the last remnant of the “Sun” house that was ripped apart in a terrible way. He has PTSD and is hired to find a missing man, along the way uncovering a deeper conspiracy involving his house and past. It was fine, its a good book. I just wasn’t into it that much. Also massive trigger warnings for sexual assault, torture, etc. Tags: M/M romance, mystery, gritty, magic. 

Vicious - V.E. Schwab: I enjoyed it and it was a short quick read, but for some reason I’ve never been able to get into V.E. Schwab much. Not sure why. Man with power over pain is released from prison and seeks vengeance on his former friend who put him there - who is now a superhero, and adopts a young girl necromancer in the process. Tags: villains, everyone is evil, superpowers, modern, necromancy, unwilling father figure

The City Stained Red - Sam Sykes: I really just started skimming while reading this one tbh. Trash man swordfighter and his disfunctional adventuring party trying to collect their payment in a terrible city. It felt like someone’s D&D campaign but in the worst way where everyone is an edgelord dark backstory. I honestly didn’t like a single character. But, that’s fine it just wasn’t for me. I see this get put on lists for having a bi-character. Which I guess technically but I wasn’t a huge fan of how that became relevant. Tags: tabletop inspired but insecure about it, gritty, terrible city, terrible people, bi protagonist

[captainmwai]

Again, She-Ra And The Princesses Of Power Is So Gay <3

So I’ve seen both of the things I’m gonna talk about in isolation from each other but I feel like they’re EXTREMELY RELATED so strap in folks...

POINT ONE: SPOP Has Hella Gay Characters and ZERO Homophobia

We got lesbians (WE GOT SO. MANY. LESBIANS), we got adorable gay dads (and the inevitable consequence of DOUBLE THE DAD JOKES, YES), we got semi-canonically-bi characters, we got a non-binary lizard person with delightfully questionable morals, we got ace aspies with delightfully questionable morals, hell, we even got awkward boys with crushes on beefy boys, and not once, not ONE SINGLE TIME, is anyone, even the Big Bad (WHO IS SO, SO BIG AND SO, SO BAD) for a second says anything bad about The Gays.

Conflict is NEVER about gayness, it’s ALWAYS about a bigger theme.

POINT TWO: For a Show With Zero Homophobia, There Are A LOT Of Themes That Indirectly Get At Queer Problems Caused By Homophobia

We got Coming Out To Your (good) Parents, we got Coming Out To Your (bad) Parents, we got Rescuing Your Girlfriend From Conversion “Therapy”, we got Evil Megachurches That Claim To Be About Peace And Light, we got Running Away From Your Evil Mom, we got Be Yourself No Matter What, we got Love Conquers All, we got THERAPY CAT, we also got Running Into More Runaways And Being Like Oh Shit You Two Huh.

SO LIKE!!!

This is such a power combo!

It says to GLBTQ teens (and those of us who are sitting around with weird stripey scars from when we were GLBTQ teens who were lucky to know about, like, any gay media), sit yourself back and enjoy this cartoon where everybody is 100% cool with your existence, and yet at the same time we’re gonna give you a bunch of stories that are calibrated chicken soup for your gay soul.

She-Ra And The Princesses of Power isn’t just GAY.

It’s SUPER, MEGA ULTRA GAY, turbo charged with gay narratives, and I am 100% sure that this is exactly, exactly, as Noelle intended.

[andhumanslovedstories]

as someone who’s very recently fallen absolutely in love with Cat Sebastian (QUALITY QUEER REGENCY ROMANCE, HEY THANKS) I loved this interview with her, where she talks about the tension of the inherent conservatism of regency romance (and romance in general) and the revolutionary nature of expanding the roster of protagonists for such stories (different races, different classes, different genders, different bodies): 

[Interviewer] It’s interesting how it seems to often be doing this very complicated dance, where the happily ever after is about stability in a lot of ways—these two people are paired up. But there’s also something radical about how it expands the sense of how that stability can be achieved, I think.

Yes, or who deserves that stability. Who deserves to be happy. So let’s say you have a spinster scientist in 1810, and she feels like she’s an outcast, where she couldn’t possibly get married, because she has to do botany. However, by the end, she’s married an earl, let’s assume, and she’s comfortable, she has children. She’s been enfolded into that preexisting structure. Romance can give that conventional ending to people who might be unconventional. I think that’s part of the power of the genre, is that it extends that happy ending to people who might otherwise feel undeserving.

(from “A Chat with Cat Sebastian About Writing Queer Characters in Historical Romance”)

And that conventional ending is part of the tremendous appeal of romance novels for me. Nothing too bad is going to happen in the end. Our lovers aren’t going to die. In fact, they’re going to get together despite the odds and be happily in love and having notably great sex in the background of all the next books in this series. 

I think there are, very broadly speaking, two ways to tell a radical story: one is to find a new story, and one is to apply the old story to new people. A new story is things like children’s fairy tale movies where the princesses save themselves and don’t get married by the end and don’t need a man and fight with swords and all that. The princesses are the same, but the stories are different. An old story with new characters is if the princess gets to be rescued from dragons and wear a beautiful dress and marry a prince she loves and who loves her above all else, and the princess isn’t how we’ve defined princesses in these stories, because she’s Black or she’s trans or she’s fat, she’s gay (and the prince is a stone cold butch with an enormous sword), she’s old, she’s disabled, she’s not a princess at all but a serving girl who stays a serving girl throughout and the castle she gets at the end is a pub that she buys and runs and earns a tidy profit on that keeps her comfortable to the end of her days.

And building on that, I think that what can be disappointing sometimes is when creators do both radical things at once: new stories and new people. So you get a princess that sword fights and doesn’t want to get married and never needs to get saved, and she’s a disabled, lesbian woman of color. And on one hand, YES GOOD, I WANT THIS STORY. And on another, I think it’s also fair to say, why doesn’t she get to be in a long-term committed romantic relationship? Why does she only get to save and never get to be saved? And then back to the original hand, but why are these the only rewards we can imagine? And back to the other hand, because we are told that people who are not the traditional princess don’t deserve these things and I do not want to deprive her of what the other princess got. 

(The solution is that the more stories that feature new people--who are in fact no newer or more unusual in our world as any other people but who’ve never allowed on stage--the less each narrative bears the weight of representation.)

I like reading very conventional love stories about two women in love earning their happy ending. I know the old story is very restrictive for some people, that they’ve seen it too many times, that there’s nothing empowering or exciting about seeing a retelling of it, no matter who it centers on, and I respect that. Me personally, I like having my own chance at the old story. 

In the comments section of the article linked above, there’s a commenter, a gay man, writing about how he was afraid for a bit that one of Sebastian’s books would involve one of the men involved being hanged for sodomy while the other is left to grieve alone. And the thing about romance is he’s never going to get hanged for sodomy. They’ll always get together. It’ll always work out. They’ll find a very conventional way to be in love together forever despite literally everything, and you can start every book with that guarantee. And that very conventional fact of this conventional genre can be quite revolutionary depending on who you apply it to. 

[takaraphoenix]

Review: Barbie in the Pink Shoes

I actually have a lot to say about this movie. Both good and bad - though, to start with that, overall I really enjoyed this movie a lot. But let’s start with the things that bothered me.

I don‘t know enough about ballet to know this for a fact, but it feels like a thing that... the dances are... set. Like the music. No one would think about switching up the music for them, I somehow assumed that the dances for pieces like Swan Lake and Giselle are actually fixed. Set. Since those are ballet pieces.

So I don’t really see “I’ma improvise myself around this number because I know better” to be a very... good... thing. Yes, sure, we need creative minds and choreographers are always needed - and I do love that her conclusion in this movie wasn’t “I got the main part” but “I get to choreograph my own ballet” - but it’d just, I don’t know, personally I would not be very impressed by someone who can’t follow instructions?

That’s not the kind of person I’d want to work with. When you sign up for a performance and the one in charge for the choreography gives you the steps, you ought to follow those because you are the performer, not the choreographer so seeing someone during a performance just improvise away, I would not want to work with that person because they clearly don’t give a damn about what their higher ups have to say and just do whatever they want. That’s... That’s worse than a demanding diva, in my opinion?

That message that you get what you want if you just do whatever you want and not listen to others... that is... inherently bad in a society where you have to indeed follow rules and you should definitely listen to the director when you are hired to play a part??

That aside, there is only one more thing that bothered me. The “rival” character seemed like a very self-centered bitch at the beginning, but after the main journey, she was suddenly all hugs and support and... where did that come from? The usual route in those Barbie movies is that Barbie goes on this journey of self-discovery with her rival and her rival also discovers herself and they bond during it and then the change in personality is earned, but in this case... nothing changed for the rival-character since Barbie took her best friend with her so... That change in attitude was out of place there.

All that being said, let’s get to the good parts.

I love a good crossover. Love the Enchanted Forest settings for fairy tales, but to now have such a thing for ballets? That was actually really cool and delightful!

(It also really made me want to see a Barbie adaptation of the Snow Queen.)

The fact that Barbie took her best friend on the journey is awesome, because while she usually has a best friend, the movie does always seem to find a way to leave said best friend behind and instead have Barbie go on an adventure with a rival character to give them the character development treatment.

I love Barbie’s best friend in this and that she got to tag along. Also, highly shipable. On the separate gayness skale ranking that I’m making this clocked in on third gayest Barbie movie so far. And I may even re-evaluate it into gayest of all time.

I mean, it kind of doubles down on the gay with the guys? There are a total of... four... and I really can’t believe that... potential love-interests for Barbie in this movie - the real life guy, with whom she is just friends throughout the movie, surprisingly enough, then Siegfried from Swan Lake, with whom she shares the true love dance and still she lets him down gently and is all like it was nice but no, then the two guys from Giselle, who then go on a journey of self-discovery together, where they teach other lessons and grow close and yeah I ship them.

Barbie all the while is sent on a quest to rescue her princess from the villain’s castle. Seriously. That’s part of the plot. Her best friend is abducted and with single-minded focus, Barbie goes on a journey to save her in a way that is straight out of a classic fairy tale.

The fact that there is no endgame straight ship in it makes it all the better too. I seriously thought, when the two girls met the two guys from Giselle that yeah that was it, they were going to make them be two endgame straight ships.

You... You really don’t realize how forcibly heteronormative children’s movies are until you are allowed to watch a bunch of highly queer-coded movies with zero straight canon ships. I know I say this in at least every second Barbie review, but having been raised on Disney and DreamWorks movies and the forced heteronormativity and “it’s only 80 minutes but we must force a straight romance endgame in for the main character!”, it is incredibly nice and refreshing to watch these Barbie movies, where maybe one out of five even includes a canon romance at all and then it takes a definite backseat to the friendship and family values that these movies put front and center.

I really love these Barbie movies. And I absolutely loved this one! It was so very queer-coded and fun and very, very pretty to look at too.

[thats-what-sidhe-said]

Voltron Actor AU

This fic’s going to be a little meta and a little salty. (A little?) Though TBH, in the saltiest bits I wasn’t thinking of Voltron. (Fuck Blood Ties so much. So, so much.)

Previous part here. This is all super rough. I’m just kind of going with it.

---

It was two weeks later when Sanda, the showrunner, called the entire main cast in for a meeting. "I've just come from a meeting with the network!" she said exuberantly. The cast - Shiro, Keith, Allura, Lance, Pidge and Hunk - looked at each other.

"Are you sure?" Hunk asked carefully. "You don't usually look like that after you've talked to the network."

"I know," Sanda said. "But I've got excellent news. They have agreed to have a gay character on the show."

"Wow, that's great!" Shiro said, and the others agreed.

"I did have to make a few concessions," Sanda admitted.

"A gay character," Keith said warily.

Sanda nodded. "I'm sorry, Keith. Sven and Akira would make a good pairing, but the network's nervous. It'll be Sven. We'll introduce a romance with a new character and reveal his sexuality as a part of the story. Shiro, I assume this won't be a problem?"

"Not at all," Shiro said. "I'm proud to be a part of this. We're breaking new ground."

Keith nodded. He sank back in his chair and swallowed his disappointment. "Yeah, this is good," he said honestly. "It's great, Sanda. Thanks for fighting for us."

"I know how much this means to you," Sanda said. She took a deep breath. "Because of this, we're going to be making some changes in the upcoming season." She chuckled. "To be honest, we weren't expecting them to say yes so soon. But we'll roll with it. Like I said, the network wanted a few concessions. Keith, you're going to get the half-alien prince storyline."

"What?!" Lance yelled. He jumped to his feet. "That's mine! We've been teasing McClain as half-Altean for three seasons!"

"I know," Sanda said. She held his hands out placatingly. "It's not going to be a full swap. The half-Altean story will still happen, but we're pushing it to the following season. Akira will be revealed to be half-Galra, which will set up a great Romeo and Juliet romance between him and Princess Fala." She grinned winningly and took a careful step back.

"What?!" This time it was both Lance and Keith.

"Well, with Sven being confirmed as gay, the network wanted to make it clear that everyone else on the team was straight," Sanda said, the words tumbling quickly from her mouth.

"Oh, that's lovely." Keith folded his arms over his chest and scowled.

"You think Keith can pass for straight?" Lance scoffed.

"Better than you!" Keith snapped.

Lance leaned forward, his hands on the table. "Sanda, come on, my agent's putting me out for romcoms. I need to show my romantic side."

Keith rolled his eyes. "Just come out already."

"Oh, yeah," Lance said sarcastically. "Because I really want to spend two seasons doing off-Broadway zombie musicals."

Keith jumped up and leaned towards Lance. Allura sat between them, so they weren't quite face to face. "The fight choreographer was doing his last show before retirement. I asked for the time off because it was my one chance to work with him. Some of us care about the work, not our ranking on People's Sexiest Genre Stars."

"You're just jealous because you ranked below Wil Wheaton!" Lance snapped.

"All right!" Shiro rose to his feet and placed his hand on Keith's shoulder.

"Lance," Allura said. She rested one manicured hand over his. "I could use some work on my romantic image, too. Perhaps you and I could make some appearances together."

"Oh, yeah?" A small smile emerged out of Lance's scowl.

"Sure. I know of a little sushi place in Pasadena with a beautiful view. We could go, have a nice dinner, get caught by the paparazzi on our way out?"

"You think you could stand an evening with li'l ol' me?" Lance said, slowly sitting back down.

"Maybe more than one," Allura said.

"Two more seasons," Pidge groaned. "Hey, Sanda, wanna write me off the show?"

"Sorry, Pidge," Sanda smiled at her. "We're keeping Katie's big adventure. Hunk, we're going to explore your family a little." Hunk gave him a thumbs' up. "And Lance, we're going to come up with something amazing for McClain."

"I hope so," Lance said, the lines of his scowl reappearing.

"Look, all of you, this is big news and we want to control the story," Sanda said. She looked at Shiro. "Shiro, you're going to be asked a lot about your personal history, especially about your coming out. Your relationship with Keith will probably be a big point of discussion as well, since you're both on the show."

Shiro nodded. "I'll have our publicist talk to Bibobi and we can strategize." He looked at Keith who also nodded.

"Yeah," Keith said. "I'm all in. This is important."

"Good," Sanda said. "We're going to be pretty busy in the writer's room sorting this out, so Mitch will be directing the next episode. Be good to him."

"Always," Shiro said.

---

Keith drove home, his little BMW taking the curves of the hills at faster than the recommended speed. He had a sixth sense for hazards and always made it home safely.

"Do you want to eat anything?" Shiro asked, as they went up the stairs from the garage. They'd had dinner on the set, but that had been several hours ago.

"You cooking?" Keith gave him a tired smile.

"Sure," Shiro said. "I could make cereal, protein shakes, cold pizza-"

"I finished the pizza this morning," Keith said.

"Scratch the pizza then," Shiro said. "We could call for delivery?"

"Cereal's good," Keith said. He yawned and unlocked the front door. He heard the click of toenails on hardwood, approaching at full speed. Shiro took a neat step to the left and Keith took the full force of Kosmo's pounce. Keith's rescue dog was believed to be part Irish wolfhound, part malamute, and part prehistoric wolf. The vet disputed the last part, but Shiro was pretty confident about it. Keith was pinned on the floor, laughing, as he ruffled his dog's fur and Kosmo licked his face. Shiro had and Keith had lived together for most of Kosmo's life, but it had been Keith that found him as a young pup and brought him home and Kosmo hadn't forgotten.

"Come on, boy," Shiro said, slapping his hand against his thigh. "Let's get you some dinner." Kosmo followed Shiro to the kitchen and Keith had the chance to get up brush himself off. Shiro fed Kosmo from a bin of dog food in the pantry while Keith poured them bowls of cereal. They ate on the center island of the kitchen, sitting on barstools. "How are you feeling about the news today?" Shiro asked.

"It's great," Keith said. "It's good for the show, it's good for the LGBTQ community, and it's good for all-ages television."

Shiro hooked his ankle around Keith's, as if they were teenagers drinking milkshakes. "Come on."

Keith lowered his spoon and sighed. "It's selfish. It's just - I've always wanted to play opposite you in a big blockbuster movie. Not some indie pic where one of us dies, either. A real action-adventure with a romantic subplot."

"That'd be amazing," Shiro said. "But this isn't the end. We can still do that."

"Yeah, there's a lot of queer high-budget action movies." Keith sighed.

"Not yet," Shiro admitted. "But there will be. If they won't hire us, we'll start a production company."

"You have not looked at our budget recently, have you?" Keith said dryly.

"Okay, we're not there yet," Shiro said. "We'll get there. We're on the way up and this is going to be a big boost. To you, and to me, and to genre media. If parents can let their kids watch queer people at home, they'll let them see them at the movies."

"There's still the foreign market," Keith reminded him.

"A harder sell, but Deadpool proved you don't need China to be a success," Shiro said. He slid his arm around Keith's waist, pulled Keith against him, back to front, and rested his chin on his shoulder. "I'll get you your blockbuster," he said softly, against his ear. "I will save a hundred million dollars penny by penny, if I have to, but we will have our movie."

Keith rested against him and smiled. "I love you."

"I love you, too," Shiro said, and kissed his temple. "This'll give us a boost, I promise. I already told Coran and he's trading notes with Bibobi. He said he might be able to parlay this into a Vanity Fair profile."

"Vanity Fair? Off this?"

"Sure," Shiro said. "'Hollywood's Queer Power Couple - Breaking the Pink Ceiling Together.'"

"'Power Couple'?" Keith asked. 

"Fake it 'til you make it," Shiro said.

"Pink ceiling sounds like a feminist thing," Keith said.

Shiro grinned, his stubble brushing against Keith's ear. "We'll let Coran write the copy."

"Hey, Shiro?" Keith asked. His words had a little drag at the end, meaning he was reaching the end of his energy.

"Yeah, babe?"

"Can we get a Jackie Chan cameo in our movie?"

"Definitely," Shiro said.

"Get him to choreograph the fights?"

"James might get get jealous if we hire someone else."

"Not if it's Jackie Chan," Keith said.

"Point," Shiro said. He kissed Keith's temple. "I think we should get some sleep."

"Sleep," Keith yawned. "Okay."

They put the dishes in the dishwasher and went up to bed.

---

My AO3.

[la-knight]

For the writing 1, 2, 7

1: Describe the plot of your current WIPs in a single sentence each.

Ohmigawd…that’s hard…okay, let me make a list real quick.

The 12th Camellia: an autistic queer Mormon girl has to rescue her sister when her sister ends up trapped in their favorite VR MMO; Six of Crows meets Sword Art Online.

Bare Not Your Heel to the Coward’s Arrow: world-hopping fanfic to fix all the dumb shit that happens in CW’s Arrow

A Little Black Book and a Little Black Dress: World-hopping fanfic to fix all the dumb shit that happens in The Blacklist

Blow Northerne Wynde: a queer autistic woc Mormon girl and her sentient starship get hurled through a wormhole that takes her back to our time, followed by alien invaders who have seeded Earth with sleeping kaiju they intend to wake up to exterminate us; Pacific Rim meets Outlander, sort of.

The Edge of Darkest Devotion: Sequel to a finished fanfic about Loki’s motivation/redemption/character journey in Thor 1, Avengers 1, and afterward.

Empress of Ice and Oceans: Hades and Persephone, but using Yoruban and Russian mythology and starring two black leads.

Eidolon: If Romeo & Juliet were both Batman-esque vigilantes working for the Crown when the ghost of a homicidal necromancer and Jack the Ripper attack magical AU London.

Facets of Snow and Frost: World-hopping fanfic to fix all the dumb shit that happens in the MCU/MTCU.

Glass: industrialized magical urban fantasy version of Alice in Wonderland with a lot of gay poc kids fighting against the ridiculousness of a prophecy that says the female lead is going to be the dark ruler that will plunge the magical world into a new Dark Age.

Hallows: A genderfluid goddex tells the story of how they were kidnapped and forced to fight as a magical gladiator, then was blackmailed into betraying their home when they fell in love and their wife was used as a hostage against them (they’re telling their sister while rotting in a prison cell, but the sister doesn’t know if she believes them).

House of Gears: Teenage Jewish Cinderella’s little sister is kidnapped by the bogeyman, so she must crash a steampunk monsters’ ball with the help of her former not-so-imaginary friends (including a genderfluid Princex Charming/Sleeping Beauty and a lesbian fairy godsister) to get the sister back.

In the Dark of the Night and the Hour of the Wolf: Redemption fic for Hela from Thor Ragnarok (female villains almost never get the redemption fanservice male villains do). Ties into “Edge of Darkest Devotion.”

King or Captain, Sinner or Saint: World-hopping fanfic redeem Killmonger, ties into Facets.

The Lightning Bleeds Scarlet and Gold: World-hopping fanfic to fix all the dumb shit that happens in CW’s Flash (like Magenta losing her powers, Iris and Barry taking so long to get together, Barry’s dad dying, stuff like that). Ties into Bare Not Your Heel.

Once in the Winter’s Tide: Fanfic set between Winter Soldier and Civil War that ties X-Men, Blade, Spider-Man, and other things into the MCU, starring Bucky and a mutant woman with 4 kids and a dangerous secret. Ties into “Darkest Devotion.”

Once Upon a Time: Redemption fanfic for Nuada Silverlance, the villain from Hellboy 2.

A Palace of Ink and Stardust: Autistic woc Mormon girl falls in love with a changeling at her school and has to come to grips with being bisexual and Mormon (cute wlw fluff all around, with magic).

The Silver Princess: A bi Mormon healer’s apprentice falls in love with an Elven princess and the princess’s twin brother, while all three of them have to deal with a war brewing between humans and fae. All the queer poc rep.

Snow White, Blood Red: World-hopping fanfic to fix all the dumb shit that happens in Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, starring an autistic woc, a trans woc, and their gay best guy friend.

Yes, I have ADD. No, that’s not a joke.

2: Do you have anything published? If so, where? 

I’ve published several short stories and a poem. I’ve self-published my first two books, but they were heavily whitewashed at the insistence of the agents who originally repped them and I didn’t realize at the time how problematic that was (although I knew it was annoying af) so I’m rereleasing them fully restored to their original poc (and for the most part queer) glory when I have the time. 

As for my short stories, you can find my latest in the anthology Tomorrow’s Cthulhu, on my Patreon, or in the anthology New Legends: Caster - Castle - Creature.

7: What was the first novel you ever tried to write? If you’ve never tried to write a novel, then what was the first story you ever wrote?

The first story I ever wrote was in crayon when I was 4. It was a fanfic about how the Red Ranger fell in love with Rita Repulsa’s daughter (who was NOT the daughter of Lord Zed, so he was her stepdad) and while she was…like…wicked, you know, bad temper and chaotic neutral type, like Wade Wilson level morals, she hated being evil because it was too much work and she was lazy and she just wanted to date the Red Ranger because he was hot and nice to her.

The first NOVEL I ever wrote, I was 8 or 9, it took me an entire school year, and I wrote it by hand. It was called Catrina and Stephen: How an American Girl Became Princess of Monaco, and it was basically the adventures of this random girl who, on the eve of her 17th birthday, bought tickets through a magazine (I don’t know…) to the Coronation-and-Find-a-Bride Ball of Prince Stephen of Monaco, and her parents paid to fly her to Monte Carlo (in the middle of her senior year…for some reason) and the prince was like 19 and they met and fell in love a la Cinderella at the ball and got married literally the next day and had all these weird adventures and like, I shit you not, 35 kids (lots of triplets and quadruplets and I think a few quints).

I worked on it every day, in school, for bellwork. We got a writing prompt every morning and I always found a way to incorporate the prompt into the next chapter of my book. So literally one chapter might be them going to the grocery store and having to shop “like poor people” and the next chapter an evil scientist shrinks them down and they have to create a fort out of toothpicks and lincoln logs to protect themselves from a tarantula and rats, then in the next chapter they might scout an expedition to fucking Pluto and meet some eldritch alien horrors, but one of them fell in love with one of the kids (also being a kid, so cute “that’s my girlfriend” child love) and it became a star-crossed lovers thing that gets resolved by the UN. It was wild shit. 

By the end of the year it filled 6 composition notebooks, had over 150 chapters, and ended with Catrina and Stephen dying and the alien and princess taking over the Earth and forming an intergalactic empire or something, but it was cool because basically it was just, everyone can do whatever except bomb each other or torture people.

[mysticdrabbles]

Can we get some Jaehee fluff and angst? Pleassseee... I love this blog,,and Baehee

#JaeheeIsBaehee2K∞

~*~Fluff~*~

When Jaehee was a little kid she wanted to be a Disney princess

Little Jaehee used to tie blankets around herself like a dress and dance around in her bedroom

Little Jaehee was also kind of obsessed with Mulan in that “Do I want to be her or do I want to date her” way 

(Queer Girl Problems™)

Spoiler alert, the answer is both.

This is why little Jaehee started taking judo classes.

She stopped one day when her uncle’s wife scoffed at her and told her that being a princess wouldn’t pay her bills, and that no prince was going to do it for her

Angst has infiltrated the fluff, surprise!

(This kind of behaviour is why Jaehee’s mom didn’t want to have to leave her with him)

Jaehee was in a school play when she was nine.

It was scary and stressful and she could barely speak her lines because her mouth was dry and she was so nervous.

She actually panicked and forgot her lines. She just stood on stage with the entire auditorium standing and waiting for her…

Until one of the older girls who was playing one of the main roles stepped in and improvised to cover her and keep the show going.

She still remembers the way the girl swooped in, her chocolate brown eyes shining under the bright stage lights. The way she smiled down at Jaehee without an ounce of pity as she rescued her.

Jaehee’s first girl crush ♥

She’s held a high respect for actors, especially live theatre actors, ever since.

Jaehee likes wearing baggy shirts because they’re super comfy. Also it’s a bonus that they’re the opposite of the blazer and blouse combo C&R requires her to wear.

Sometimes she wears sweatpants around the house. It’s her way of spiting Jumin and his stupid fancy dress code.

(She honestly doesn’t mind it all that much. It just wouldn’t be her first choice 24/7 is all.)

Jaehee is one of those people who can’t really stay angry at others. 

Sure, she gets mad sometimes

But she doesn’t hold grudges very well at all.

And she has an even harder time being angry at someone if they’re upset. She’s the type of person who would give encouragement and a box of chocolates to her worst enemy if they needed it.

Once, she was exhausted and stressed from the inhuman amount of work Jumin was making her do. And it wasn’t even for a company project, it was for one of Jumin’s personal projects. And a stupid one at that. And worst of all, she hadn’t even seen Jumin all week.

When Jumin called her into his office she was about ready to snap.

But then she saw him, sitting at his desk, with deep, dark bags under his eyes and a bright red flush over his face.

Now she knew why he hadn’t left his office.

He gives her a look that makes it clear that she is not to even acknowledge his current state, and then gets straight to business.

And Jaehee is tired and hungry and overworked, but she goes straight to the employee break room and makes Jumin a tea. 

She knocks on Jumin’s door, places it on his desk, and walks away.

“I’ll have that report for you by the end of the day, Mr. Han.”

“…yes, thank you Assistant Kang.”

Jaehee had her first boyfriend when she was seven. He was nine. 

He rescued her when some other kids were picking on her for pretending to do martial arts on the playground at recess.

They would eat lunch together and hold hands every recess, until school work started taking up all of her free time. They broke up and decided to move on.

She had her first girlfriend at sixteen. 

It was a girl in her English class. Her name was Yumi.

They met when they got paired up to do an English assignment. They had to make a presentation on a movie that showed a character growing up.

Yumi suggested Disney’s Mulan.

That got them talking, and one topic led to another, which led to another… 

Soon enough they were talking every day. 

Soon they were sharing secrets and crying on the phone with each other when something happened.

And then, during movie night, when Yumi was singing along with The Little Mermaid…

Jaehee kissed her.

She was still unsure about her sexuality at the time so it was a very slow and cautious relationship.

And just when she was starting to feel comfortable and starting to consider officially identifying as bisexual…

Her mother died. 

Jaehee and Yumi broke up. 

And Jaehee never really got over the guilt of keeping that secret from her mother. 

To make herself feel better, she tried to convince herself it was just a phase, that they were actually just close friends. That way she didn’t have to feel bad about hiding a part of herself from her mother.

Surprise angst, the sequel!

T_T  Angst  T_T

Who needs headcanons when canon Jaehee is so very angst

Think about it. She doesn’t stand up for herself. She doesn’t fight for what she believes in unless you push her to.

She sits quietly and does as she’s expected because she was raised to believe that her only value in life is how useful she can be to others.

She sees herself as the supporter, never the one in the spotlight herself.

Practicality is the only thing that matters. 

She was punished or looked down on for even thinking of following her dreams. For doing anything that her aunt didn’t consider something productive. 

Productive meaning something that leads towards her moving out and supporting herself.

She’s used to feeling like a burden. She feels like she has to carry her load, and more, or she’ll be discarded.

Jaehee sees Zen as basically a real life fairy tale prince, but not in a romantic way

You know why?

Because she’s super gay Because she’s not a princess. She’s a side character. A handmaiden at best. 

It’s not so much that she doesn’t believe she can be in a romantic relationship. She’s dated before. She just doesn’t believe that the ‘ride off into the sunset holding hands and singing of our love from the rooftops’ kind of fairy tale romance is for her.

Besides, she’s no Mulan.

She doesn’t see herself as brave.

Or kind.

Or adventurous.

She wishes she were. But she feels like her past has pretty clearly indicated that she’s not any of those things.

She was so willing to change her appearance for Jumin because she’s used to it.

She’s used to being told she’s not allowed to care about her looks, because other things take priority.

She’s used to not being allowed to be the stylish pretty girl. She always had to be the dedicated, studious girl. 

Didn’t work she was still gorgeous af

Sometimes Jaehee thinks she likes the stress of her job at C&R. It’s either that or feeling empty and unsure about her future.

[chimepunk]

What novels or book series would you recommend?

oh fuckin boy dude so many. 90% of what i read is either gay or scifi/fantasy or both, and some are technically for a younger audience but still great, so thats what most of this is which hopefully you’re cool with here goes

this got super long so i’m putting it under a cut. bolded titles are the ones that i’m super recommending, though i love them all

novels

the coldest girl in coldtown by holly black - vampires! a trans character! a bi character! one of the most novel approaches to vampires in fiction that i’ve seen! 10/10 would recommend

the darkest part of the forest by holly black - again, holly black is one of my favorite authors. this one’s got faeries (the proper vaguely unsettling kind that i’m all about) magical music, girls embracing their sexuality, girls being knights, interesting sibling dynamics, and a super cute m/m pairing

les miserables by victor hugo - ok yeah, it’s like 1400 pages long and historical fiction, but i love les mis a lot ok. it’s gotta be on this list just because it owns my ass. it’s like a old drunk french man trying to tell you about the june rebellion but he keeps getting distracted by things like people’s personal lives, the intricacies of the parisian underworld, and how much he wants to fuck the sewers. it’s wonderful

the night circus by erin morgenstern - magical circus that mysteriously appears for days at a time and then vanishes? a competition between young magicians drawn out for years? a wide variety of fascinating side characters? (i will say that the synopsis available for the book is somewhat misleading, as it’s actually less about our two protags and more about the circus itself. but that’s what makes it so enchanting)

the song of achilles by madeleine miller - retelling of patroclus and achilles story to be explicitly romantic. will make you feel like you’re floating on clouds and then rapidly crush your soul. sort of a happy ending? but it’s still a tragedy. their ending is the same as it was in the illiad so if you’re not prepared for that then maybe don’t read

good omens by neil gaiman and terry pratchett - a demon who’s not very good at being a demon and an angel who just wants to collect his books in peace thank you very much try to sabotage the end of times. absolutely hilarious

fairy and folktales of the irish peasantry by w.b. yeats - the best collection of irish faerie stories by one of my favorite poets. if you like creepy and tricky faeries i would def recommend checking these out

rootabaga stories by carl sandburg - another collection of folktales, this time inspired by the american midwest. kinda weird, kinda zany, very neat

the poison eaters by holly black - a short story collection of faery stories that are sometimes creepy, sometimes touching, sometimes gay. my personal favorite is about a library science student who finds a book collection where the characters come out at night and interact, but they’re all really great

series:

alex rider adventures by anthony horowitz - teenager gets recruited by MI6 as a spy, has incredibly high success rate, gets pretty fucked up along the way but damn those one liners tho, maybe have some self preservation alex? just a thought

all for the game by nora sakavic - about a fake sport called exy that’s kind of like indoor lacrosse but more violent. contains: crime families, found families, an aspec protag, girls kicking ass, unhealthy levels of sass, wonderful slowburn m/m that you can’t even see coming for a long while, and a happy ending for everyone!! i came for the gays and ended up reading all three books in two days. also you can get the whole series for less than five bucks on kindle! (note: tw for rape, physical abuse, torture, ptsd, child abuse, drug use, alcoholism, some use of slurs, mentions of past self harm, mental illness)

artemis fowl by eoin colfer - more faeries, but this time they live underground and are way more technologically advanced than humans. the first book focuses on our anti-hero trying to catch one and steal their gold, and they quickly become allies and solve faerie related cases together!! one of my favorite series growing up, and i cried in the middle of the hallway at school when i finished the last book

camp half-blood series by rick riordan - does rick riordan write a lot of mythology books? yes. do i love them all? yes. neurodivergent kids! kids from a huge range of racial and ethnic backgrounds! queer kids! collect them all! ft. greco-roman mythology and a lot of stupid jokes

emelan series by tamora pierce - ok this is easily one of my favorite series of all time. non-western high fantasy setting (picture greece/turkey, china, tibet, mongolia, scandinavia, etc type settings), following four young mages who have unique kinds of magic as they train and grow their skills and become powerful in their own right. only one of the kids is definitely white (jury’s still out on sandry), one is a lesbian, one is ace, one is pan, all four are raised by a loving f/f couple, body diversity, one of the best found families i’ve ever read, feminism, discussion of racism, classism, cultural identity, war, and so much more. it’s so so good and so under-appreciated please read all of the emelan books 

the dark is rising sequence by susan cooper - full disclosure i have not finished this series yet but i’ve re-read the first book a million times. it’s a neat take on arthurian mythology, with dark forces trying to take over and kids getting shit done

diviners by libba bray - psychic teenagers in 1920s new york! i’m a slut for prohibition, but these are also super fun and have likable and real characters, and doesn’t only focus on wealthy white people having parties which is nice. the occult! government conspiracies! historical references! genuinely scary situations! it’s rad!

the enchanted forest chronicles by patricia c. wrede - i adore this series so so much. it’s about a princess who’s father keeps telling her that she can’t have hobbies like fencing or cooking or conjugating latin verbs because they’re unladylike and insists that she marry this doofus prince that she couldn’t care less about. so she runs away and volunteers to work for a dragon and proceeds to send away all the princes that try to rescue her. it’s genuinely funny, has a really neat magic system in the later books, great female friendships, cats, dragons who have no time for your gender roles, and wizards who are the most ridiculous group of antagonists you will ever see

the infernal devices by cassandra clare - i really really do not like the author of this series but it also broke me so it must go on the list. if you’re familiar with the mortal instruments or shadowhunters on freeform, it’s set in that universe in the 1870s in london and it’s very steampunk and very angsty and it made me cry a lot

the kane chronicles by rick riordan - see: camp half-blood series but egyptian

fablehaven by brandon mull - oooooh fuck me up i love this series. this is another one meant for slightly younger readers but all of brandon mull’s series are so wildly imaginative and i’m a slut for world building so. the premise is basically that there are secret preserves all over the world that house magical creatures, and five of these preserves have vaults with artifacts that when brought together make a key to this massive demon prison. an evil society called the society of the evening star is trying to get the artifacts to open the prison, and a different group who is allied with the preserves called the knights of the dawn is trying to get to them first to prevent this from happening. there are dragons, light and dark powers, crazy convoluted vaults to get through, and some really cool creatures and characters

beyonders by brandon mull - this guy again! this one’s about a parallel world called lyrian that people on earth can only get to through small liminal windows, and usually can’t get back through. the story follows two kids, jason and rachel, who get stuck in lyrian and end up becoming major members of the resistance against the evil emperor maldor. just like fablehaven, the world building is insane and you’ll fall in love with all the characters. this is yet another series that made me cry in the middle of class when i finished it

the kingkiller chronicle by patrick rothfuss - this is series is long as all fuck and the last book isn’t out yet but it’s my #1 favorite series of all time. i found out about it bc a cashier at a local grocery store held up the line to write it down for me and i never went back. parts of it are achingly, hauntingly beautiful, other parts are hilarious enough to leave you in stitches, others make you want to pull your hair out. there’s sass, recklessness, beautiful and deadly girls, an overwhelming love and emphasis on the importance of music and storytelling, magic that’s more like science, ethnic adversity, student loans, a thing that might be a cow or might be a dragon depending on who you ask, and more quotable lines than you could dream of. the audiobook by nick podehl is also fabulous, and lin manuel miranda is producing and adapting it for the screen and maybe stage at some point in the future!

a modern faerie tale by holly black - guys. i love holly black. almost everything she’s ever written is on this list. this one is fairly self explanatory by the title, but it’s gritty and dark and has those lovely creepy faeries that she’s so great at writing. also a surprising m/m couple in the last book, both of whom are characters in the other two installments. (tw for drug use/addiction, brief sexual assault, and probably other things that i can’t remember right now)

the raven cycle by maggie stiefvater - also in my top 3 favorite series of all time, i cannot begin to describe this series. i first read it while up in the nc mountains which improved the experience to a surprising degree, but it’s stuck with me for the last several years. basically 5 teenagers go in search of a dead welsh king, but along the way there is magic, psychics, ghosts, a sentient forest, dreams becoming reality, curses, teenage shenanigans, classic cars, swearing, church, kisses and not kisses, illict hand holding, a baby crow, bisexuality, a death list, hitmen, and nicknames and it will consume your heart before you know what’s happening to you (tw child abuse, implied sexual assault, substance abuse, dissociation, mentions of past suicide attempts, body horror, gore, and disturbing scenes esp. in the last book)

six of crows by leigh bardugo - a team of criminals band together to break into an impossible fortress, fall in love, con an entire city, and get rich. set in the same universe as the grisha trilogy (which is also good but not as good as soc), this is basically a heist followed by a con, but pulled off by ruthless teenagers and with the help of magic

curseworker trilogy by holly black - crime families, magic that can only done through touch so everyone wears gloves, moral ambiguity, and a twisted romance. one of holly black’s best and most underrated series

baccano! by ryohgo narita - this is a japanese light novel series which has been adapted into an anime, but is much more extensive in print. the plot is extremely convoluted, but an absolute ride spanning several centuries, although the bulk of it is in the 1930s in nyc and chicago. there’s an elixir of immortality, crime families, trains, a solipsistic assassin and his mute assassin gf, serial killers, a demon with a catch phrase, murder, explosions, adorable couples, gambling, a gang leader named jacuzzi who is always terrified, killer corporations, and much much more

no.6 by asuka asano - another japanse series, this time focusing on two boys, one who grew up in a utopian city, the other who grew up outside the walls after the city destroyed his life. they meet when they’re 12 years old, and several years later, they’re reunited when the outsider rescues the city boy from arrest. they, along with a pimp and a nonbinary dog hotel owner, try to expose and overthrow the government. also ft. drag performances, mice who like shakespeare, killer bees, and boys falling in love.

the merlin saga by t.a. barron - my favorite take on arthurian mythology, chronicling merlin as he comes into his power. there’s a vividly magical island, giants, amulets, talking trees, stones that will try to swallow you, a swamp witch, celtic deities, huge wicker hats, poetry, new kinds of fruit, people that are also deer, and human’s long lost wings.

[tc-doherty]

Hey! Happy Storyteller Saturday (Getting this in early this time haha)

You have a book coming out this year!

Treat this as a practice advertisement to my followers!

What's it called? Tell us the tropes! Tell us the genres! Tell us an elevator pitch! Do you have a cover / art to grab the attention of visual readers? :D

@jacquesfindswritingandadvice / bloodlessheirbyjacques ✨

@jacquesfindswritingandadvice

Oh yay! I don't usually get asks for Storyteller Saturday (probably because I'm not online on the weekends) but yes, I do have a book coming out this year! And I would love to talk about it!

Dragon's Daughter is book one of a two-part lesbian knight/dragon love story and my elevator pitch is:

A young dragon is mistaken for a princess trapped in a tower and forcibly "rescued" by a would-be knight in shining armor. Carried off to human society, and with no ability to leave, she has no choice but to accept her newly bestowed noble title and do her best to navigate all of the drama that comes along with it.

(Just to make it clear, her love interest is not the same knight as the one who "rescues" her)

Some tropes: knights and ladies, dragons, general 1200s-ish fantasy setting, finding oneself, found family, political intrigue, lots of queer characters, a medium amount of world-building

The story will be serializing as a web novel starting July 15th before being published as a physical volume. It will be available on the publisher's Patreon along with a second very good, very gay novel by another author.

The cover reveal (and first full chapter, for free!!) will happen in about two weeks, so you're a bit early. But I can say that the story will have 14 very sweet illustrations which are being done the old-fashioned way, as actual block carving prints!

Just for you I will share a thumbnail that we decided not to go with (in favor of another option) so that you can get an idea of what the full art looks like. We're going for the visual style of fantasy novels printed in the 40s and 50s.

And I do have an image of the main character, Lady Patrice Drake, that I drew a few months ago.

You can find the full project introduction and synopsis here.

[hag-o-hags]

FEBRUARY READS 4-6

This year, my goal is to read books that are written by women, feature effortless and authentic female characters, explicitly include queer characters and characters of color, and pass the Sexy Lamp Test and the Mako Mori Test.

Seraphina - Rachel Hartman 🌟🌟🌟🌟☆ Holy world-building, Dragonman. This is an amazing goddamn sandbox. It’s often a failing of YA that stories feel built around a set, like the development is  scaffolding meant to be put up and taken down quickly and easily. Seraphina feels like it’s told out of a real culture, like it wasn’t just built for this story. There’s philosophy, history, food, religion, music, biology, all of which are not to obfuscate our understanding but to highlight the setting. I will say, I listened to this one, so I didn’t see any spellings until after the fact, and some of them -- the dragons speak Mootya, the country of Goredd, the ambassador Dame Okra (really? really?) -- are kind of achingly 1980s. But oh well. There is ONE! token character of color, introduced early, whom I really hoped was going to have a significant voice: he doesn’t, but he’s fairly important; as well as ONE! token gay character, who’s a crabby gouty old composer. I was concerned for a while that we were going to hit that old I’m Not Like Other Girls trope where our heroine is the only Smart Special Grounded Realistic Rational teenage girl, but her flighty princess counterpart is just extremely 16, and far smarter and more capable than she lets on.

Uprooted - Naomi Novik 🌟🌟☆☆☆ Okay, so you know when you’ve got all the ingredients for a delicious pancake breakfast laid out in front of you, like, there’s bacon and blueberries and all you need to do is just put it all in the pan and fuckin’ cook it? Aren’t you always like, “You know what, I’m going to dig way to the back of the fridge and see if I can scrounge up a moldy bologna sandwich instead”? Right? Similarly, when the setup for two girls to fall the fuck in love is RIGHT THERE, I just find it so invigorating to have the 17-year-old hook up with the centuries-old wizard who calls her a useless idiot, but, you know, in a good way. (If we broaden the definition of “good” to include: disrespectful, gross, condescending, totally devoid of affection.) I really wanted to like this book! It’s, like, Fantasy Eastern Europe! The antagonist is Nature, Literally Not Allegorically! There’s a super awesome Black lady wizard! The setup for two girls to fall the fuck in love is RIGHT THERE! But the longer it went on, the less enchanting I found it. The action feels intense and high stakes, but the periods between just drag on and on and on. And, yeah, toxic heteronormativity irritates the shit out of me, but I would have been happy enough with a Beautiful Powerful Female Friendship, but the BFF -- rescued from certain doom, steadfast and loyal, turned into some kinda indestructible warrior golem -- gets shoved into character stasis where things happen to her but she completely stops developing, like, Oh Yes, My BFF Action Jackson Who We Put In The Off-Screen Cupboard When We Don’t Need Her. You let me down, book. I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.

Chalice - Robin McKinley 🌟🌟🌟☆☆ I found The Hero and the Crown last year, and it was the first book in ages that blew me away, so I keep coming back to Robin McKinley wanting lightning to strike again. And it just. Doesn’t. Chalice is fine. The voice is unique (strange? confusing? too poetic for its own good?) You could plaster Aarne-Thompson-Uther numbers all over it, but it doesn’t feel derivative. On the other hand, it’s so slow to dole out exposition that not expecting what comes next is less to do with fresh takes and more about not being fully clear on what the hell is going on. As it comes together, the mechanics of the story become cohesive, and it’s actually quite elegant and lovely in retrospect. But by the time we’re solid on what has happened and what these people are doing, the book is at its climax and there’s 40 pages left.

all february reads 🌟 all 2017 reads 🌟 super special book tag